Coaching & Mentoring

It is easy to get wrap up in the differences between business coaching and mentoring and to ignore the practical benefits of either approach. What is important is that the objectives and agenda are clear for the sessions. Coaching and mentoring are usually long term and lower cost approaches to resolving business problems. Quite often they require the creation of good and breaking of bad habits .

The distinction that Aimed Business works with is that:

Business coaching uses the expertise of the coach to identify and rectify issues which impede performance. These issues can be identified by the coach or the business and there resolution often involves the setting of exercises. So for example where time management is an issue the use of time diaries noting what the manager is actually doing with his or her time may be used. Key to coaching is that the answer is found from outside to enable the improvement.

Business mentoring uses experientially based guides. Business mentors may have experience in the same sector or function or be able to apply experience from elsewhere to resolve a problem. Mentoring achieves success by enabling the individual to solve their problem from within. The simple mentoring model is that the client owns the agenda for the meeting in terms of what they wish to discuss and achieve; the mentor provides the active sounding board.

Aimed Business often uses the GROW model:

G is for Goals. What are we trying to achieve. Multiple goals can form an objective or a goal can be split down into a number of aims.

R is for Reality. What are the realities of the situation so that the solution will work. Start from now not from an idealised world.

O is for Options. The way forward is full of different options that may or may not fit the reality or achieve the goals. Discussion creates clarity on the way forward.

W is for What Next. The ideal mentoring session results in the client knowing what small step they need to achieve in the next hour in order to start implementing the solution.

What’s Aimed Business’ approach to coaching and mentoring

Coaching and mentoring assignments often commence with 2 review sessions to understand fully the background and context of the client. They help to refine the plan on what will be tackled over the next year or 3 months in order to achieve the ultimate objectives. The review is a fixed fee of £200-500 depending on the nature of the assignment.

Typically following a review, sessions are arranged monthly at a cost of £50-100 per hour plus VAT. This can be varied through mutual agreement. To find out more about our approach to business coaching and mentoring, just send me an email with a good time and number for a quick chat.